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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

Francisco Aragón

Francisco Aragón was born in San Francisco, California. He received BA from the University of California–Berkeley and an MA in Spanish from New York University. After spending ten years in Spain, he went on to receive an MA in English from the University of California–Davis and an MFA from the University of Notre Dame in 2003.

Aragón is the author of Glow of Our Sweat (Scapegoat Press, 2010) and Puerta del Sol (Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 2005). He is also the editor of The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry, winner of the 2009 International Latino Book Award for poetry in English.

Of Puerta del Sol, the poet Sandra M. Gilbert writes, “These eloquent poems of mourning and memory move deftly, as in a beautiful grave sarabande, between Spain and San Francisco, past and present, enriched by what Francisco Aragón justly calls the ‘bilingual mirror’ of his ‘corazón.’”

Aragón is the recipient of a 2015 VIDO Award from VIDA and the 2010 Outstanding Latino/a Cultural Arts, Literary Arts and Publications Award from the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education. He is the founding director of Letras Latinas, the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He also serves as the publisher of Momotombo Press. Aragón divides his time between Notre Dame, Indiana, and Arlington, Virginia.

She and I on a bench eating prawns:
the first day of her fiftieth year and she points
at two street performers about to juggle
fire, and a distant summer morning
surfaces, afloat on the light wind blowing
off the bay—older sisters in the dark, hiding
as big brother parades around the house
his hands